I’m 25 years old and began taking Propecia about two months ago. I took it for 15 days and stopped after experiencing side effects such as loss of libido, ED, and brain fog. I have since had my T-Levels taken (once at 8:30am yeilding a result of 718, and once at 4:30pm yeilding a result of 480). It have been severval weeks since I’ve stopped the drug, but the side effects remain. Is there anything I can do? How long do there normally remaining after stopping? I’m trying the get my Dr. to run more blood test recommending on this site. I suppose all in due time. Any advise would be greatly appreciated. I took the drug b/c I was told god forbid I did experience side effects, they would go away. I feel my life is in a tale spin and I am falling into depression if it’s not cured soon.
Have you read the New Members FAQ at the top of this forum? Please do so if you haven’t already, it might help answer some of your questions.
Otherwise browse around as there are many others in teh same boat as you. For now, you should wait at least several months to see if you improve before doing anything else (ie, other drug treatments), as it has only been a few weeks and sometimes it takes a bit of time for your system to return to normal.
Also, please don’t spam, you posted this same thread 3 times in a row. Thanks!
I understand your pain man. Some others of us also took it for less than a month even and have some of the same side effects. Panic and I both only took it for three weeks. Hang in there for now. You may slowly returnto normal. We have been experiencing some improvements in approx. five weeks time, but most say it will take sometimes 3-4 months for marked improvements to your penile health if you’re experiencing these sides.
We can at least still have sex. I just don’t like the discomfort.
Anyway, don’t do anything drastic yet.
Like I said, I feel your pain. I’ve been suicidal and all that. But I’m gonna try to give it at least six months before I do anything drastic.
Hang in there bro!
Boston (31) … what am I gonna do without my dick!!..
How common is it for someone to completely return to normal? And do they REALLY return to normal? I mean competely? Why does it take so long? I was told by numerous doctors that the half life was about 8 hours so the drug would be out of your system in a matter of days at worse, correct? Also, I recieved good T-Level results back, but have absolutely no drive/libido? Does anyone know what this is related to and how I can combat it?
dude, I’m sure there are plenty of people who probably return to normal.
It just sucks for the few who don’t right away. …and then we happen to find this site, and post a lot, and so it seems like a bad bad situation.
But I am sure plenty of people return to normal.
It’s just scarey, and it sucks though!!!
Also, just like life, anything can happen.
All you have to do is believe, and pray, and try not to worry, pick up on some people’s advice, and use what you think will work best for you, eat right, and again just believe. As well as try to listen to doctors, and go after it.
TELL ME THIS. Do you have intermittent pain and discomfort down there, or numbness of any sort?
a lot of us unfort have that.
Just try not to beat it up too much either because I think it makes it worse.
Also, Idk if you have a girlfriend right now, but surprisingly many of us who can’t seem to get it up masturbating very easily, can still at least get it up for sex consistently, so thats at least a minor relief, at least you’re probably not “impotent”.
Although I know it just all sucks! For me I can’t stand the discomfort and pain all the time. It just makes my whole body feel nauseous and ill. It sucks… I mean all of it I know@
So lemme ask you, did you just find this site? How long have you been sweating this? You must have shit a brick when you found this site huh?
I know dawg, it sucks.
I’m havin a rough time with it too.
I’m actually considerin trying to walk it off if I don’t get better soon. I tend to feel a lot better when I am moving around, and so my idea is instead of waiting and waiting and being very depressed, I may just try to go hike the Pacific Rim trail or something, pull a Forest Gump or something stupid like that. idk, but I’ll tell you, I’m pretty upset too.
Hang in there bro.
Boston (used to tag girls, and wanna fuck’em all day long. I’m too young for this!! B)
I’ve read that it takes your body time to adjust. If so roughly how long? Days? Weeks? Months? If so, would it be safe to continue to take the drug now that your body adapted to it?
Takes a few months for the body to adjust to it while on the drug, could take weeks to months/years after discontinuation to get back to normal for some. Remember, you are altering the natural balance of hormones in your body with this drug, the implications of which for some people are unknown.
Not sure why you’d even contemplate taking it again in the first place.
For the love of GOD, if you’ve stopped the drug, do not start back up… just give it some time… for those who ahve recovered, it takes several months, so just wait it out for now…don’t do anything drastic, and just stay positive…if you want some conceret answers, read the articles in the research section of this discussion group, although none of them address side effects once stopping the drug… they all discuss side effects while on the drug
Washington, are you manic?
Yesterday you were terrified about your sexual function, now you seem scared about your hair again??
Did you have a good day with your penis or something?
And I wrote that post to you man. whats up. Why would you say that?
You must not be suffering that bad, it seems.
Peace!
Why does it take for long to return? ans what the rule of thumb 1 month, 2, 3?
For the 3rd time already – most of these questions are answered in the Finasteride Side Effects FAQs at the top of the forum homepage.
The short answer is this: If you are destined to “return to normal” after quitting Finasteride, for the majority of men this happens within a few weeks. For some it may take a few months.
For the rest of us that have the problems continue, it can take a lot longer (potentially years) or they may not return to normal at all.
Nobody knows why this is, its just the way it is. Most in the medical community don’t seem to have any real answers, most likely not even Merck knows why Finasteride screws up some people and not others, only that it does. It likely has to do with disruption of the Hypo-Thalamus Pituitary Axis, and (possibly) neurotransmitters/neurosteroids such as dopamine, GABAA and Alloprenanolone, for starters – but this is all conjecture/theory as put forth by those on this site, since none of us are doctors and only have medical studies for reference… and so we are trying to piece things together for ourselves, on our own.
Hypo-is-Here brought up some interesting comments on elevated Estradiol and SHBG as a possible result of Finasteride use which could be affecting some men and preventing them from recovering. But this situation does not apply to everyone, and even when correcting such hormonal imbalances, some men do not recover completely to the way they were before the drug.
So to anwser your question (for the LAST time): there is no real rule of thumb besides what I said above. Everyone is different and the drug affects us all differently, so your “recovery” will either happen on its own time or it wont. It’s a simple as that.
If it doesn’t – well, then you need to start looking into some of the stuff we discuss on this forum – other drugs/hormone replacement, etc. and see if that helps. Of course this should all be while working with an endocrinologist that recognizes you have post-Finasteride issues and is willing to work with you on such.
Anyway, this will be my last post on this thread. I advise you to read through every post on this forum before posting similar questions in the future, as you may find the answers you’re looking for from others who have asked before you, who are in the same boat.
I mean really Washington – if we knew WHY we haven’t recovered, none of us would be here in the first place because we’d be getting treatment so we COULD recover!
Well…I’m back, unfortunately. I began taking Propecia back in Feb and was only on it for 2 weeks. Upon feeling sides (impotence/no libido/brain fog) I immediately discontinued. I continued to experience these symptoms for approx 1 month. Then suddenly for a 2 week period things seemed to be back to normal!!! Well, that was short lived b/c now it’s been another month where I’m back experiencing the same sides (as bad or worse). I’m hoping I experience a recovery again and this time for good, but who the hell knows! Anyone else with experience like this??? Any advice?
Sounds familiar. I’m in the same boat… came off after 11 months, about 2-3 weeks later recovered competely for about a week, then crashed.
Advice is to get more BLOOD TESTS to compare to your previous results, to see what is going on. From there you can make further decisions. The rest of the stuff you probably already know - trying clomid/hcg/nolvadex/TRT… etc., but they also have their own set of issues. Or try some of the stuff in the Naturals section… or just wait and see what happens, hopefully things should resolve for you.
Yes, same thing happened to me. Was on it for 2 months. Noticed sides and discontinued. After about 1 month i started recovering nicely for about 2 months. Then crashed badly for the last 4 months.
Mew…I noticed you were on P for 11 months and then off of it for 8 months. Did you experience any improvement??? I only took it for 2 weeks!!! And all my test results thus far show a T level of over 500. Is there any hope?